ALLAN MARTIN

EVERY so often my nephew Andrew comes to visit us. He’s at uni here in Glasgow – doing Physics – his family are in Aberdeen. He gets a good Sunday lunch; I do a roast and Anita makes a cheesecake. You get the picture.

It was last October, around the tenth. We’d gone through to the living room for coffee. Andy usually goes for the armchair, but this time he sat himself next to me on the sofa and pulled out his phone.

“I’d like you to look at this, Uncle Bob,” he said, “You’re into that historical stuff.”

With my self-published tome, Buried Secrets of the Templars, currently in 89,537th place on the Amazon non-fiction list, I could hardly demur.

“I went with some mates yesterday for a drive up beyond Helensburgh,” he began. “Mike Sturrock has a car, so all four of us could squeeze in. One of the places we visited was the Old Kirk at Garshalloch. Do you know it?”